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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year candidate, but also a huge commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded five million copies sold, this is despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite an unexpected turn for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game that would meet reasonable market performance,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone versus what we anticipated and the actual outcome turned out to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating a complimentary expansion for players including novel settings, foes, and boss fights, as announced would be out in the next few months.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director who has a great vision for our work and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” the executive added.

The studio's scale drummed up a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for a studio. Despite being truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the title's staff list indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, for example.

“We will hire slightly more definitely when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” they stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few highly skilled individuals that create a work of art together.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that enabled this success in the first place.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — believe me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they said. “It's a bit too early to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

They noted how this game began with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully this approach we can continue with upcoming games.”